Did Boulder Accidentally Legalize Marijuana?

Laura Kriho, the Cannabis Therapy Institute’s outreach director, says it appears the Boulder City Council’s effort to rush an emergency ordinance to crack down on medical marijuana has spawned confusion about what the rules actually do. “They didn’t put a lot of thought into the definitions or into the rest of the ordinance,” she tells the Daily Camera, saying it appears the ordinance could be interpreted to mean that anyone who sells pot is in business legally. Read the language for yourself. The approved ordinance states a medical marijuana business in Boulder is “any establishment that makes available marijuana in any form to any other person in exchange for money, goods or services,” or anyone with “possession of more than six marijuana plants and two ounces of a usable form of marijuana, unless the possession is by a patient or primary caregiver” as defined by the Colorado Constitution. So does this mean anyone in Boulder can sell pot now without fear of being busted? Not so fast, says city attorney Jerry Gordon: The “ordinance doesn’t legalize the sale of marijuana,” although he concedes a layperson might interpret it otherwise.

As that debate rages, medical marijuana suppliers are creating a self-regulating network—the Colorado Wellness Association—that would apply quality-control standards, such as labels on their products, reports 9News. Meanwhile, the American Medical Association has voted to urge that marijuana no longer be considered a controlled substance, in the same category as heroin and cocaine, so that researchers can better access it to study its benefits (via Food Consumer).